Set in contemporary Berlin, DISPOSABLE MAN tells the story of Max Krumm: American expatriate, struggling journalist and the reluctant descendant of Holocaust survivors. Krumm also suffers from a mysterious genetic disorder: All of the men in his family are cuckolds. After his German wife leaves him, Krumm falls ill and is haunted by memories of his Jewish past — in particular, a desperate postcard his great aunt once sent from the Siberian gulag addressed simply, “Albert Einstein, U.S.A.”
A multigenerational novel woven into the backdrop of revolutionary-era Russia and Nazi Europe, DISPOSABLE MAN tackles enduring themes of loss, male identity and the search for meaning. Holding up a mirror to Gen X and millennials, it explores today’s generation of stalled, disposable men as it follows Krumm on a rambling journey east through Poland into Lithuania where he attempts to uncover a family secret and, in the process, regains his manhood.
Reviews
San Jose Mercury News
Levitin’s ‘Disposable Man’ Seeks His Proper Place In a Feminist World
“As the title hints, the novel deals with male identity in the 21st century, but it also embraces timely themes of Jewish heritage, women’s movements, ghosts of the past, wisdom of our elders and more… Robust with nuance and wit, it’s beautifully written with vibrant descriptions of people and places and lots and lots of history – both global and personal.”
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Levitin’s ‘Disposable Man’ Seeks His Proper Place In a Feminist World
“As the title hints, the novel deals with male identity in the 21st century, but it also embraces timely themes of Jewish heritage, women’s movements, ghosts of the past, wisdom of our elders and more… Robust with nuance and wit, it’s beautifully written with vibrant descriptions of people and places and lots and lots of history – both global and personal.”
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Fiction Writers Review
Disposable Man, by Michael Levitin
“A contemporary, straight Western man has two options. He can either search for his lost masculinity, grasp it and define it for himself, or he can live in a state of existential denial. Levitin’s debut novel is a classic, compelling and hilariously fun identity quest… a nod towards the great European tradition, so a bit of German writers and a lot of Philip Roth.”
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Disposable Man, by Michael Levitin
“A contemporary, straight Western man has two options. He can either search for his lost masculinity, grasp it and define it for himself, or he can live in a state of existential denial. Levitin’s debut novel is a classic, compelling and hilariously fun identity quest… a nod towards the great European tradition, so a bit of German writers and a lot of Philip Roth.”
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Review 31 (UK)
Young Mannish Bull
“The subject of Michael Levitin’s first novel is not just the ‘disposability’ of man as declared by its title, but his displacement… As in Hemingway’s iconic first novel, our protagonist begins in the metropolis by collecting a crowd; the crowd then takes an inebriate journey; finally the protagonist breaks off on his own, to discover himself ‘truly’… It is a young-man-comes-of-age novel tout court, and in many ways a promising one. The happy bike journey through western Poland has a touch of Mark Twain to it, even Whitman; the Jacks, London and Kerouac, come to mind too.”
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Young Mannish Bull
“The subject of Michael Levitin’s first novel is not just the ‘disposability’ of man as declared by its title, but his displacement… As in Hemingway’s iconic first novel, our protagonist begins in the metropolis by collecting a crowd; the crowd then takes an inebriate journey; finally the protagonist breaks off on his own, to discover himself ‘truly’… It is a young-man-comes-of-age novel tout court, and in many ways a promising one. The happy bike journey through western Poland has a touch of Mark Twain to it, even Whitman; the Jacks, London and Kerouac, come to mind too.”
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Good Times
Author Michael Levitin’s Updated Male Manifesto
“Disposable Man is a compelling male manifesto, an elegy to lost purpose and grip—stunning, angry, smart, funny, and uncomfortably precise. From the book’s spectacular opening pages to the raw bittersweet ending, Levitin’s remarkable post-millennial novel bristles with restless speculation about male identity in the #MeToo milieu… an astringent perspective on post-feminism, late capitalism, global unemployment, and the overall ennui of males who have yet to find traction in a chaotic Zeitgeist. A tour de force, crackling with humor and defiance.”
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Author Michael Levitin’s Updated Male Manifesto
“Disposable Man is a compelling male manifesto, an elegy to lost purpose and grip—stunning, angry, smart, funny, and uncomfortably precise. From the book’s spectacular opening pages to the raw bittersweet ending, Levitin’s remarkable post-millennial novel bristles with restless speculation about male identity in the #MeToo milieu… an astringent perspective on post-feminism, late capitalism, global unemployment, and the overall ennui of males who have yet to find traction in a chaotic Zeitgeist. A tour de force, crackling with humor and defiance.”
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Rain Taxi
Disposable Man, by Michael Levitin
“The novel is historically minded, but it is about the haunted present. Max lives with the stories of his ancestors, who were murdered by Nazis, buried under Gulag permafrost, interrogated, deported, and hounded across Europe. He yearns for what’s beyond his island of post-millennial Berlin, and this coming to terms with the past in the present is the central theme of this book… The reader, alone with this brief novel, may feel a cold draft, as if someone has entered the room.”
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Disposable Man, by Michael Levitin
“The novel is historically minded, but it is about the haunted present. Max lives with the stories of his ancestors, who were murdered by Nazis, buried under Gulag permafrost, interrogated, deported, and hounded across Europe. He yearns for what’s beyond his island of post-millennial Berlin, and this coming to terms with the past in the present is the central theme of this book… The reader, alone with this brief novel, may feel a cold draft, as if someone has entered the room.”
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The Jewish News of Northern California
Ghosts of Jewish Past Haunt East Bay Journalist’s Debut Novel
“This debut novel describes an angsty American abroad in Berlin and Eastern Europe on the trail of his family’s Holocaust and war stories… Levitin is an accomplished journalist, while his alter ego Max Krumm suffers millennial angst about finding greater purpose in the current era.”
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Ghosts of Jewish Past Haunt East Bay Journalist’s Debut Novel
“This debut novel describes an angsty American abroad in Berlin and Eastern Europe on the trail of his family’s Holocaust and war stories… Levitin is an accomplished journalist, while his alter ego Max Krumm suffers millennial angst about finding greater purpose in the current era.”
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Exberliner (Germany)
Hot Lit! Six new debut novels from Berlin
“Michael Levitin’s debut novel is another journey down Berlin’s tragic 20th-century timeline, but one which is charged with caustic bawdiness. Soviet work camps, flights from the Nazis, massacres at the Ninth Fort – Levitin’s most powerful writing can be found in these horrific, elegiac historical episodes, as well as his hilarious chapter-long manifestos on topics such as the Prenzlauer Berg man and the cultural weight of being a Jew in Berlin.”
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Hot Lit! Six new debut novels from Berlin
“Michael Levitin’s debut novel is another journey down Berlin’s tragic 20th-century timeline, but one which is charged with caustic bawdiness. Soviet work camps, flights from the Nazis, massacres at the Ninth Fort – Levitin’s most powerful writing can be found in these horrific, elegiac historical episodes, as well as his hilarious chapter-long manifestos on topics such as the Prenzlauer Berg man and the cultural weight of being a Jew in Berlin.”
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The Press Democrat
Book Publishing Forestville Family Is a Tribe of Scribes
As for Levitin, from the beginning all roads have led to writing. Some of his earliest memories are set in the Forestville house – playing amid the fruit trees, spying on his mother while she wrote in her study. He also remembers Morey’s writing shack from the early days: A converted chicken coop that Morey lovingly called ‘the Hooch.’
“I followed my own path but learned by example,” says the resident of El Cerrito. “[The influence] my parents had on me turned out to be stronger than I ever knew.”
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Book Publishing Forestville Family Is a Tribe of Scribes
As for Levitin, from the beginning all roads have led to writing. Some of his earliest memories are set in the Forestville house – playing amid the fruit trees, spying on his mother while she wrote in her study. He also remembers Morey’s writing shack from the early days: A converted chicken coop that Morey lovingly called ‘the Hooch.’
“I followed my own path but learned by example,” says the resident of El Cerrito. “[The influence] my parents had on me turned out to be stronger than I ever knew.”
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The Local (Germany)
New Novel Gives Weight to Being a Jewish Expat in Berlin
“Like many millennials and men of his generation, Max Krumm lingers through life, simultaneously uneasy and comfortable in his indecisiveness. Berlin provides the perfect backdrop for his existential angst. It’s a city filled with disquieting memories of his Jewish ancestors who came before him. Yet it’s the presence of history which catapults Krumm out of casual indifference, as he follows the footsteps of his predecessors in present-day Poland and ultimately Lithuania, piecing together the past in a powerful stream-of-consciousness ending.”
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New Novel Gives Weight to Being a Jewish Expat in Berlin
“Like many millennials and men of his generation, Max Krumm lingers through life, simultaneously uneasy and comfortable in his indecisiveness. Berlin provides the perfect backdrop for his existential angst. It’s a city filled with disquieting memories of his Jewish ancestors who came before him. Yet it’s the presence of history which catapults Krumm out of casual indifference, as he follows the footsteps of his predecessors in present-day Poland and ultimately Lithuania, piecing together the past in a powerful stream-of-consciousness ending.”
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Counterpunch
Disposable Man Gets His Balls Back
What happens when the revolution doesn’t unfold as one expects and when disillusionment sets in? For Michael Levitin, who was a leader of the “leaderless” Occupy movement, it meant turning away from barricades and taking refuge in the love of writing, which came, in his case, from a place that preceded the love of revolution. In this, his first novel, Levitin offers a complex narrative about a deracinated American pseudo-journalist named Max Krumm who goes through a mid-life crisis in twentieth-first century Europe and is reborn in a world in which borders collapse and history explodes.
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Disposable Man Gets His Balls Back
What happens when the revolution doesn’t unfold as one expects and when disillusionment sets in? For Michael Levitin, who was a leader of the “leaderless” Occupy movement, it meant turning away from barricades and taking refuge in the love of writing, which came, in his case, from a place that preceded the love of revolution. In this, his first novel, Levitin offers a complex narrative about a deracinated American pseudo-journalist named Max Krumm who goes through a mid-life crisis in twentieth-first century Europe and is reborn in a world in which borders collapse and history explodes.
READ REVIEW
Blurbs
“Welcome to the nadir of post-employment, post-feminist, mediocre masculinity. Michael Levitin’s wise, funny tale is brilliant in both its pathos and earnestness. You’ll thank him afterward for this splash of world-historical cold water.”
Nathan Schneider
Author of Everything for Everyone: The Radical Tradition that is Shaping the Next Economy
“This remarkable novel about a young man’s search for the continuity of his portable life, among the ruins of a murdered past and in the face of a blank future, is rich with delights, insights, warranted sadness, and a longing to make sense of history.”
Todd Gitlin
Author of The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage and the novel Undying
“We’ve collectively torched the planet the last century and a half, men leading the ruination. Levitin’s labyrinthian embrace of our follies, tyrants, cuckolds, and lovers, not to mention aunts who write postcards to Einstein from the gulag and stoned buddies on bikes in Poland, is laughter and memory layered over it all and delivered by a compelling, life-hammered voice you trust from page one.”
Joe Sherman
Author of Fast Lane on a Dirt Road and Gasp! The Swift and Terrible Beauty of Air
“This picaresque novel allows us to explore not only Eastern Europe but gives us entrйe into Berlin’s expatriate scene and tenders a witty sociological analysis of the city’s bourgeois-bohemians that is worth the price of admission. Michael Levitin, a journalist by trade and former Berlin resident, knows this turf well. This is an insightful, entertaining and multi-faceted work with something on offer for everyone.”
Kevin McAleer
Author of Errol Flynn: An Epic Life and the novels Surferboy and Berlin Tango